Chapter 1:
"You're being quiet," Ashton says, nudging me. "You never shut up, now I can't even get you to say a word."
"It's nothing," I turn to stare out the window. I was counting the hours we had left before we reached our destination. Three hours and forty-seven minutes was the expected arrival time. The roads were open so unless we stumbled upon an accident or unforeseen traffic then it'd be smooth sailing.
"Jade, talk to me."
I turned to him. "What do you want me to say? That I sure as hell don't want to be going back? That this is the last place I want to be?"
"We didn't have to take the job," he shrugs.
I roll my eyes. A typical Ashton Vaughn response. Whenever I don't agree with a job he always says that magical little sentence as if that's going to make everything seem right. He was right, and I hated him for that. We didn't have to take the job. There are plenty of other hunters who would take the job in a heart beat. I had to see things through. There wasn't anyone that I trusted to get the job done except me.
"I also don't have to stay with your ass of a self but here I am still with you after a year," I snap at him.
"Don't take your frustration out on me." He leans back in the bus seat. "Just because you're on edge doesn't mean you have to take it out on everyone around you."
I groan. "I'm itching for a good kill. Let's get in, kill the son of a bitch, then get out. I don't want to stay longer than I have to there."
"Get in, get out. Got it. I just hope you've planned enough time for us to sleep and eat. But nah, never mind that's not important or anything."
"Screw you, Ashton." I shove him a little.
All the bastard does is chuckle. He knows how to get underneath my skin. He's been doing it since day one. Honestly, I don't know why I put up with him. Maybe because he's the one person who has my back. I dunno. Either way he's the one constant in my life.
Ashton put his arm over my shoulders. "Don't worry, Jade, we'll be done with this job soon. It sounds like your average werewolf attack. All we gotta do is shoot the bitch in the heart then we're outta there."
I lean into him. "I know, just going back there has got me on edge."
"Don't worry about it. I doubt anyone will recognize you," he assures me. "After all it's been, what, two years?"
"A lot can change in two years," I remind him.
With a simple grunt, he let it go. He wasn't going to push me into talking about it. Ashton knew that my "normal" years were off limits. I just didn't like talking about them. They were hell for me. I was the weird girl that would go missing every once in a while and turn up with injuries that I couldn't explain. A freak, was one of my nicer labels.
The closer we got, the more restless I got. It wasn't my normal excitement for a kill. No it was my dread. For once I was dreading a hunt.
I could feel the weight in my chest as soon as the driver announced that we had reached our destination. Standing up I picked up my bag, slinging it over my shoulder. Ashton and I walked off the bus landing in the middle of town.
Nothing had really changed here. A few new shops and restaurants. For the most part it all looked the same. Tourists were walking around, staring at the Christmas decorations. A few of the shops had their doors decorated in some elaborate designs.
"Well this is cheery," Ashton said.
I rolled my eyes. "Let's get to work."
It wasn't that hard to get information. The local paper covered a lot more than we thought it would. There was only one thing that it left out, which is the grim details of the attack. The most important thing we needed to confirm is if there was a heart left in the body or not.
At midnight we let ourselves into the morgue. It wasn't that hard. The security guard was on the other side of the property. Seeing as it was a small town we didn't have to worry about a high tech security system or cameras. While I went to the filing cabinet to get more information, Ashton went into the morgue to inspect the body.
Whoever was in charge of the paperwork was doing a piss poor job at filing. Everything was just thrown in here without a care in the world. At last I managed to find the file I was looking for. I read over the papers multiple times, trying to make sense of it.
"The heart is still there," I whisper to myself as I hear a loud crash coming from the morgue. "Ashton!"
I start running towards the morgue, gun raised high. Some tall guy held Ashton by his throat against the wall. His partner turned towards me, gun raised. I froze as soon as I saw him. He looked just like he did in the pictures, except a little older.
"Who the hell are you?" he asks me.
"Jade...Jade Vaughn," I tell them. I could feel Ashton's glare piercing into my skin. "No need for introductions. Your reputation is well known around the hunter community, Winchesters."
Dean lowers his weapon. "Aren't you a little young to be a hunter?"
"Aren't you a little old?" I retort. "Now can your brother let Ashton go?"
"Afraid he'll hurt your little boyfriend?"
"Husband actually." I'm going to hell for this. I'm going to hell for this.
Sam drops Ashton as soon as the words come out of my mouth. Ashton makes his way over to my side. His arm wraps tightly around my waist, a sign that we are definitely going to be talking about this later whether I want to or not.
"Now this is our job, so get out of town," I tell them.
"No can do, sweetheart, it's our job just as much as it is your's," Dean informs me.
"Well then, whoever gets the job done first gets free drinks bought by the loser. May the better team win," Ashton smirks.
"I say we team up for this," Sam suggests. "It'll be easier to cover more ground with four. With there being only one more night for a werewolf, it'll be easier to find."
"That's the thing, it's not a werewolf."
"Even more reason for us to work together," Sam says. "Let's get out of here before we get caught."
